Pru-Bache Axes Risk Arbitrage: Prudential-Bache Securities Inc....

Pru-Bache Axes Risk Arbitrage: Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. said it was abandoning the once-lucrative trading in stocks of potential takeover targets for the firm’s own account, a business hurt sharply by the end of the 1980s mergers boom. Also, First Boston Corp. confirmed that it laid off 55 workers in its fixed-income department as part of a companywide restructuring designed to slash 200 jobs in the last two months of the year. The First Boston bond department layoffs include low-level support staff and veteran professionals with as much as 20 years at the firm, First Boston employees said.